


Bluffing With An Empty Hand

by nightwalker



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Bottom Harry, Declarations Of Love, Established Relationship, Family, Harry Hart Lives, Harry Hart is a romantic, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Post-Canon, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:23:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3749749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwalker/pseuds/nightwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Harry Hart threatens to end Eggsy's step-father, it's a bluff.</p><p>The second time is going to be a promise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bluffing With An Empty Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Блефовать с пустыми руками](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12743100) by [Molly_Malone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly_Malone/pseuds/Molly_Malone)



> The story references past domestic and child abuse.
> 
> Thanks to humantrampoline85 for the beta, to missbeckywrites for the encouragement and to Musicalluna for helping me come up with a title.

He'd been bluffing.

He had never intended to contact Eggsy via the listening device he'd planted on the boy - he had intended only to see if he could hold his tongue for the evening, resist the urge to brag about his get out of jail free card. He would have arranged for Eggsy to meet him at the shop by phone if the boy had been as good at holding his tongue as he claimed to be. The yelling and arguing had been expected - Eggsy's step-father was a scoundrel and a bit of a drunk and Harry had been expecting that he was a bit of a tyrant in his home life - but the violence had not.

It should have, Harry knows. The signs were there if he'd known to look. If he'd bothered to look. But he hadn't and when he first hears the sound of a fist hitting flesh, of Michelle Unwin's panicked attempt to defend her son, he feels a cold wave of fury sweep through him.

He'd have intervened regardless. But even as he switches the device to transmit, it doesn't escape his attention that Eggsy hasn't said a word about him.

When he threatens to reveal Dean to the police, it's a bluff. Spies are good at that, Harry especially has mastered the art of bluffing with an empty hand. But by the time Eggsy reaches the shop, Harry Hart has a Royal Flush up his sleeves and Dean will never threaten that boy again.

****

He doesn't get to use it, because Harry is in two comas in as many years plus some rather grueling physio, and there is the messy matter of the near total collapse of society to deal with. He doesn't even think of it until Michelle Unwin makes a random comment over their weekly family dinner one evening about having to go to court the next week because her soon-to-be-ex-husband is suing her for custody of their daughter. She doesn't seem especially bothered, but she does tap the first two fingers of her right hand together, an obvious tell left over from her smoking days that shows she's anxious. 

Harry doesn't say anything because he and Michelle are still on rather awkward ground, each afraid the other is judging them not good enough for Eggsy. He holds his tongue through the rest of dinner and reads Daisy a story on the front steps, enjoying the warm summer evening, while Eggsy and his mother wash up and talk family business. When she comes out she looks calmer and smiles more easily and she even gives Harry a quick kiss on the cheek, the same as she always does with her son. It makes him a little brave so he hands Daisy to her and says, “If you would like, I could talk to someone in Legal and see if they could refer you to a qualified Family Law attorney.”

“Oh, could you?” she doesn't look defensive, as she so often does when the matter of Dean or the years after Lee's death come up around him. “Social services said they'd appoint me someone, but I can't even get them to return my calls.”

“I'll arrange for a reference first thing tomorrow,” he promises. Daisy has grabbed onto his fingers and is delightedly shaking his entire arm back and forth like one of her rag dolls. “There are family benefits for such things as well, Eggsy has the ability to ask for representation. If you ever need anything, he can-”

“I can't,” she says shortly and she's defensive again, shoulders hunched, refusing to meet his eyes. “Feels nothing but wrong, asking him to help me defend his sister when I never defended him. I can't do right by him, coming or going, can I?”

“You loved him,” Harry says quietly, aware that Eggsy has been standing just inside the front door for several seconds now. “He always knew you loved him. None of us ever get it right every time, Michelle. Maybe there are things we'd each do differently, with hindsight and the benefit of experience. But you loved him and that's worth more than you're giving yourself credit for.”

She still doesn't look him in the eyes, but she sighs, huffs a heavy, tired breath that sounds almost relieved and presses a kiss against her daughter's temple. “Well, I suppose that's the one thing we both got right, then. Next weekend? I'll cook this time, you can help. You're going to have to learn how to make my hotpot if you plan on keeping that scoundrel around.”

Eggsy strides through the front door right on cue, smile easy and eyes bright, as if he hadn't heard a thing. “What, you're telling Harry the recipe? You about skinned me alive the one time I tried to watch you making it!”

The rest of the conversation is fond teasing and affectionate goodbyes. Eggsy leans against Harry's side as Michelle flags down a cab and Harry presses a kiss to the top of his head as they wave goodbye to Daisy, peering out the back window.

****

“I was bluffing,” Harry says, some hours later.

Eggsy hums under his breath, a questioning tone. “What, that you'd make me scream your name? Love, we've both known I can't last more than ten minutes against you since day one.”

Harry shakes his head, slides his hand over Eggsy's sweat-slick stomach. The muscles quiver under his touch and Eggsy arches his back just a little, pushing into Harry's touch. This man – his boy, always his boy, but _such_ a man – always responds so sweetly to Harry's touch, even when he's already come and barely awake. “No. Back then. With Dean.”

The mention of his step-father's ( _ex_ step-father, no kind of father at all, ever, to Harry's mind) name is enough to rouse Eggsy's attention and he blinks up at Harry. His lips are slightly swollen and there is sweat dripping down his forehead that he has to blink out of his eyes. Harry has left a series of rapidly purpling marks along the line of his collar bone and in the soft skin covering his heart. All easily hidden by his clothes, but tomorrow Eggsy will press his fingers to one of them and _smile_ and Harry will be so lost in love for him that he'll forget what he was supposed to be doing. He already can't wait for it.

“At dinner?” Eggsy says with a thoughtful frown, already trying to remember what Harry might have said. One of his hands is still combing through Harry's hair and he curls his fist against the back of Harry's neck, tugging gently. “You didn't say anything about Dean. Unless you mean what you and Mum were talking about, on the porch. The lawyers?”

“I meant all that. We'll find her a good attorney, help her pay for it.” Michelle won't take his charity, but she is slowly accepting his help. “I know someone who owes me a favor and can probably be convinced to represent her _pro bono_.”

“I won't let him have Daisy,” Eggsy says lazily, and that's a warning and a promise. 

Harry leans down and kisses him, tastes himself on Eggsy's tongue and breathes against his partner's mouth, “I will kill him before I let him hurt another member of your family.”

“That's my Harry,” Eggsy says, fond and pleased and not at all put off by Harry's casual vow to murder his mother's husband. “God, I love you.”

It still makes his chest tight and leaves him breathless. He kisses Eggsy again, just so he'll have an excuse to catch his breath, and Eggsy slides a hand around to the small of his back, pulls Harry half on top of him. Eggsy likes this sort of cuddling best, when Harry's weight is pushing him into the mattress, and their hearts are beating against each other. He presses his face to Harry's throat and bites against his pulsepoint, just shy of leaving a mark and Harry doesn't bother to hide the shiver that runs through him. Instead he slides his leg between Eggsy's until their feet are tangled together and Eggsy's groin is pressed against his hip, soft and hot and still a little sticky.

They're a mess. He's going to have to wash the sheets tomorrow. With any other lover Harry would already have insisted they move to another bed, wash up, or go their separate ways. He could never have tolerated this, the way come is drying on his stomach, the way spit and sweat have dampened the sheets. Now all he wants is to press even closer, and put off separating as long as humanly possible. He rolls his hips, just enough to press against Eggsy's cock, trapped beneath his weight, and is rewarded by his lover's deep inhale, and the way Eggsy's hand grabs at his ass, fingers digging into the muscle so hard it almost hurts. “My boy,” he says quietly, one hand cradling the side of Eggsy's face. “Dear heart. I love you more than anything.”

“Harry,” Eggsy says quietly, lips tickling Harry's jaw and Harry cannot think of any words to capture the enormity of the feeling that lives inside his chest, in the back of his head, deep in his belly. There aren't words in any language he knows to explain how Eggsy is more important than air in his lungs or the blood in his veins. 

“Do you remember the day we met?” he asks instead.

“It was such a long time ago,” Eggsy teases. His hand loosens its grip on Harry's rear, fingers rubbing against the crescent shaped indents his nails have left, soothing the bruises that will have bloomed purple and blue by morning. He kisses Harry's jaw, shifts so he can take Harry's mouth in a kiss as deep as the Atlantic, and Harry lets himself be pulled down. “Best day of my life,” Eggsy says gently. He nips at Harry's bottom lip. “Most important, too, wasn't it? Short of being born. You. And the Kingsman. Changed my whole world that day, didn't you?”

“I put a listening device on you. Sent you home. Dean became rather violent.” He doesn't bother to keep the anger out of his voice, more furious now than he had been then, which is a feat. 

“You stopped him,” Eggsy said. “Said you'd turn him into the cops, had all sorts of evidence against him.”

“I was bluffing,” Harry admits. He strokes his fingers along Eggsy's cheekbone, meets his partner's eyes straight on. “I didn't know what he was, then. I hadn't kept tabs on you, you understand. Not in years. I knew he was trouble, but I didn't look very deep.”

“No reason you should have,” Eggsy says. “Harry, you can't feel guilty about all that.”

Harry's rather sure he can. He cannot stomach men who abuse those less powerful than they, and that includes drunks who beat their wives and step-sons. “Had I known, I would have tested you another way. I thought you might brag to your friends, or confide in your mother. I would never send anyone back to an abusive environment and use that for my own gain. It's very important to me,” he says quietly, “it's very important that you know that. If I'd fully understood what that man did to you and Michelle, I'd have tested you differently.”

“I believe you,” Eggsy says easily, and there is nothing in his gaze or his touch or his tone to indicate that he is only saying that to make Harry happy. “So when you heard what was happening, you just said you had dirt on him to make him stop?”

“I found dirt,” Harry says, allowing a note of slightly savage satisfaction to enter his tone. “It was there, once I started looking. By the time you met me at the shop I had enough to put him away for years. I tucked it away somewhere, in case he tried to come after you.”

He can see the realization spark in Eggsy's eyes. “Daisy.”

“Forget a family lawyer,” Harry says. “I can make sure he never sees _sunlight_ again, let alone your mother and sister.”

Eggsy's arms tighten around him and pull him down until his full weight is resting against Eggsy, crushes their mouths together even as he laughs into the kiss. “You're brilliant,” he says, presses kiss after kiss against Harry's lips. “I love you,” he says as he rolls his hips against Harry's, heat pressing hard against Harry's thigh. “You devious-” he slides his hand between Harry's cheeks, where he's still slick and wet with Eggsy's come, “brilliant-” he presses two fingers inside and scissors them, stretching flesh already loose and oversensitive, “ _perfect_ bastard.” He kisses Harry's mouth, crooks his fingers just so to make Harry shudder. “I'm going to fuck you again,” he says with the quiet intensity that Harry has no strength against and pushes Harry onto his back. “Gonna make you scream this time, fill you up so full you can't feel anything but me and how I'm loving you, kiss you till you can't breathe anything but me. You're gonna fall asleep with me inside you and wake up the same way.” His eyes are glistening as he settles between Harry's legs, strokes his fingers across Harry's stomach to trace the length of his rapidly hardening cock even as he pushes inside Harry's body with one long thrust. “I'm gonna make you feel as loved as you make me,” he says with the same fierceness he uses to take down international terrorists and Harry's heart is going to break over this man one day, he already knows it.

Shivers run down his spine as Eggsy begins to move in him in short, slow thrusts. It'll be slower this time, sweet and easy with the edge already taken off. Harry is hard but orgasm is a while off, and Eggsy isn't trying to make him come, just trying to make him feel good, trying to make it last. Harry pushes himself up on his elbows, feels Eggsy shift inside him as he moves and Eggsy meets him halfway for a kiss as slow and wet and hot as the way he's fucking Harry.

“Dearest,” Harry says between one kiss and the next. “Beloved. Sweetheart. No one has _ever_ made me feel the way you make me feel. No one ever could. I could drown in you. I could live off you.” He shudders when Eggsy frees one hand to cup the back of his neck and kisses him again, harder, tongue moving in rhythm to his thrusts. “My Eggsy,” he sighs against his partner's mouth.

Eggsy pushes him against the pillows, follows him down without breaking the kiss. The angle's awkward like this, but he adjusts, rocks his hips a little. Harry's cock is trapped between their bellies and Eggsy is in no hurry to get either of them off. “My Harry,” he says carefully. “My perfect, brilliant Harry.”

****

It's a long time later when Eggsy says his name again.

Harry's heart is still pounding. His thighs burn from gripping Eggsy's waist and his hands are shaking. He's panting for breath, pinned beneath Eggsy's boneless weight, their bodies still locked together. Eggsy shows no sign of moving as he pants against Harry's chest, kissing whatever skin he can reach. “My Harry,” he says. “You were right, you know. I always knew I was loved. Mum – she made mistakes, but that wasn't ever one of them. And you – Harry. _Harry_.” He sounds choked and his voice is shaking. Harry forces one of his hands to move so he can cup the back of Eggsy's neck in his palm. “My Harry. Thank god you loved me back.”


End file.
